As The Albuquerque Journal's Winthrop Quigley wrote Tuesday, facts and reason are often missing from the debate about Obamacare. There's a lot we won't know about how the health exchanges work until next year. "Mundane administrative tasks will occupy the exchanges for the first year or two," two health researchers wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine. "But the exchanges are an instrument of enormous potential power."

Here's just one reason why. After the Washington Post wrote about Trader Joe's curtailment of health insurance for parttime workers, the company wrote an explanation for its move. It's a good explanation about why an employer decided the Affordable Care Act was a better option for some of its workers.

Three-fourths of the company's employees still get employer-provided insurance, the grocer said. For the rest, the company said ...

... the law is centered on providing low cost options to people who do not make a lot of money. Somewhat by definition, the law provides those people a pretty good deal for insurance ... a deal that can't be matched by us -- or any company. However, an individual employee (we call them Crew Member) is only able to receive the tax credit from the exchanges under the act if we do not offer them insurance under our company plan....

... A Crew Member called in the other day and was quite unhappy that she was being dropped from our coverage unless she worked more hours. She is a single mom with one child who makes $18 per hour and works about 25 hours per week. We ran the numbers for her. She currently pays $166.50 per month for her coverage with Trader Joe's. Because of the tax credits under the ACA she can go to an exchange and purchase insurance that is almost identical to our plan for $69.59 per month. Accordingly, by going to the exchange she will save $1,175 each year ... and that is before counting the $500 we will give her in January.

An early look at premiums offered on the exchanges by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, however, finds that, "While premiums will vary significantly across the country, they are generally lower than expected." It provides several examples of premiums and how they will be reduced by tax credits in Portland. See page 21 of the report for some Oregon examples.

Also, recall that it's hard to compare plans on the exchange with existing plan premiums because the coverage on the exchange will be improved. Plans can't deny coverage or vary premiums based on health status, Kaiser Family Foundation researchers note, and benefits include maternity and mental health services that some insurers now exclude.